


We danced, of course

by EarthboundCosmonaut



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Caligari Spell (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Faustus Blackwood is a little bitch, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Madam Spellman May, Mambo Marie La Fleur (mentioned), Rome - Freeform, and so it the Dark Lord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/EarthboundCosmonaut
Summary: She returns, night after night, to this room hidden deep in her mind. Try as she might to conjure her sister or her niece or her nephew, it is always the excommunicate witch who professes undying love for her brother that appears to her. She has never felt so pathetically grateful for anything in her life.Written in response to the Madam Spellman May prompt "dance".
Relationships: Faustus Blackwood/Zelda Spellman, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 29
Kudos: 88
Collections: Madam Spellman May





	We danced, of course

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to talkwordytome for beta reading! It is fair to say that some of these paragraphs are literally half the paragraphs they used to be as a result of her input - all to the good.

She’s spinning. Always spinning so that her body can’t quite keep up with her feet and her mind can’t quite keep up with her body. She can’t keep her balance and she is falling and falling and she wants to put her hands out to stop herself but they will not obey.

Hands catch her, firm at her waist and her arm. 

Her stomach lurches. Her mind keeps spinning even though her body has stopped. She reaches to steady herself against the body that has caught her. That much, at least, she can manage.

“Feeling dizzy are we, my pet?” murmurs Faustus.

Zelda looks up at him with eyes that still cannot quite focus. “Yes, husband,” says a voice that is hers and not hers.

His knuckles brush across her cheek in a parody of affection. “Hmm, that’s enough dancing for one evening. Let’s go to bed, shall we?”

 _No. Curse you to heaven. Take your hands off me. For the love of Satan, somebody help me_.

Her face lifts into a smile. “Yes husband.”

* * *

Faustus is busy during the day. The Infernal Council sits in conference to discuss the future of the Church of Shadows. In the recesses he meets secretly with the other ministers to curry support for his bid for the position of Antipope.

“Now that I have been appointed as interim, the position is mine to lose,” he tells her one evening, as she manicures his nails. He seems to enjoy telling her the details of his plans, even though she is no longer capable of doing anything more than tell him what a clever husband he is in response. Perhaps that’s all he ever wanted from her. “Possession is nine tenths of the law, my pet,” he tells her, running his free hand over her hair. Zelda files the nail of his ring finger to a sharpened point. Her mouth smiles and her mind screams.

She uses his absence during the day to test the boundaries of the spell. Faustus leaves her instructions: _arrange to have my shirts laundered, buy yourself some more feminine clothes, order us veal for dinner_. As she moves through these wifely chores she searches for weaknesses in the enchantment that binds her. At the boutique where Faustus has set up an account, she browses rails of black dresses. But when the owner asks if she would like to try anything, her legs carry her to a display of floral tea dresses and her mouth replies in a girlish voice _voglio provare questo, per favore_.

At the market she moves between displays of oil and cheese and charcuterie, accepting the samples that the stall holders offer her. Faustus is haphazard at best about instructing her to eat, and hunger gnaws almost permanently at the pit of her stomach. Yet much as she salivates at the rows of light, golden pastries and the beautifully dressed crabs, she leaves with only a fillet of veal wrapped in brown paper. She hands it to the Necropolis chef with instructions that they will take their dinner at 7.30 and her husband likes his meat very rare.

She tries everything she can think of to find a weakness in the enchantment, but wielding magic requires control of the body and the voice: without those things she is helpless. Sometimes she screams and shouts inside her mind, hurling curses at the warlock who dares to do this to her. Sometimes she imagines what it will be like to live out the rest of her days in this intolerable manner. Then she panics and hurls herself against the walls of the spell like a bird dashing itself against the bars of a cage. She is enormously grateful that this has happened far away from Greendale. Shame floods her at the idea of her family seeing how easily she has succumbed.

She settles on the idea of ending her life. Whatever eternal torment the Dark Lord would subject her to for the act is preferable to living this way. The next time she goes to the market she walks to the Ponte Sant’ Angelo – the exercise will help keep her trim for her husband, she tells the simpering fool who cohabits her body. She gets as far as climbing up onto the stone balustrade. She stands next to a statue of St Michael, teetering as she gazes down into the muddy waters of the Tiber below. She wills her body to tip forward, but instead her hand reaches out to grasp at the plinth on which the False God’s warlord stands. She cannot move.

“Excuse me ma’am,” asks a tourist. An American, judging by the accent and the dreadful khaki pants. “Do you need help?”

If she was capable of crying she would. Instead Faustus’ pathetic wife says: “Would you mind giving me a hand down? I have so many errands still to run before my husband finishes work.”

After that she prays. To the Dark Lord, to Lilith, to the demon lords of Hell – to anyone who will listen. She would do anything, promise anything, to be freed. What price could be worse than what she is already enduring? But nobody answers.

* * *

If her solitary daytime hours are spent trying to wrest control of her wayward body, her evenings are spent trying to distance herself as far from it as possible. Faustus reveals to her a true persona so appalling – so preposterous – that she could not previously have imagined it. Even if, in hindsight, all the signs were there.

He takes calculated pleasure in humiliation. One evening he forbids her to walk: she must crawl on her hands and knees. Another night he amuses himself by quizzing her on her insecurities – which part of her body does she dislike? What are her greatest fears? Of what is she most ashamed? She cries as she answers, Faustus’ little wife, and Zelda screams her own pain and rage and humiliation into the tears. Faustus’ eyes glint like those of a jaguar toying with its prey.

When he has had his fun, he takes her to bed. It is their honeymoon, after all, and Faustus is keen to initiate her in all aspects of her wifely duties. She imagines herself far away from her body and the things being done to it – the things it is _doing_. She imagines herself home in Greendale, standing in the parlour with a fire blazing in the grate and the clatter and smells of Hilda’s cooking drifting to her from the kitchen. She fights to keep herself there, far away from the pain playing out on her body.

When she feels her grip slipping – the edges of the room fading into the walls of a Necropolis apartment and the bite of Faustus’ sharpened nails piercing her skin – she takes the prayer beads from the box on the mantlepiece and sinks to her knees on the hearth rug. It is an action so practised and so familiar that she can lose herself in it. _Hail Lilith_ she mutters, fingering the first bead, _full of disgrace_. It is an ancient devotion and a common penance for young witches. She has prayed it often over the years, hoping to grow in the Dark Lord’s favour by conforming herself to his first follower’s example.

 _You fled the garden where the weak ones dwelled and did not live in shame_. The words catch in her throat. Has she ever been further from the Mother of Night’s example than she is now? She is an abomination. She surely deserves all that is being done to her.

She gasps as pain sears through her body. It almost jolts her back to that room with that man and she fights to remain here, in this sanctuary she has made for herself. She grasps the second bead, closes her eyes, begins again. _Hail Lilith, full of disgrace, cursed are you amongst women and cursed is the fruit of thy womb, demons_.

There is a scratch of a needle and a crackle. A record starts up – an old jazz tune that she hasn’t heard in decades. She turns, startled by the noise. Is it happening here, or has Faustus dreamed up some new mortification for her in Rome? The last thing she expects is to see Sabrina’s schoolteacher standing by the gramophone. She must be losing her grip on her sanity more quickly than she realised if this unreliable trickster is the figure her subconscious has summoned to keep her company.

Miss Wardwell raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at her. “Would you care to dance, Sister Spellman?”

“It’s Lady Blackwood now,” Zelda corrects her, unthinkingly.

Her face twists into an exaggerated frown. “I think we both know you can do better than that jumped up little factotum, Zelda.”

Pain lances across her back and she digs her fingers into the hearth rug, trying to anchor herself in the parlour. Miss Wardwell is standing in front of her, extending a hand. “Come now, dear. A little dance is just the thing to help you forget your troubles.”

“A little dance is what got me into my troubles in the first place,” she grits out from between clenched teeth. But she takes the hand nevertheless and allows Miss Wardwell to help her to her feet.

Their dance is not the energetic foxtrot that Faustus is so fond of but a slow shuffle around the room. Zelda clings to a body that is warm and soft and angular and solid and she knows it’s all in her head but it feels oh so real. The hand in her hand grips firmly, reassuringly. Miss Wardwell tugs her close, encourages Zelda to rest her head on her shoulder. She buries her face in locks of thick, dark hair, drowning herself in the sensation.

“That’s a good girl.” Miss Wardwell’s breath ghosts across her cheek as she speaks. “You just stay here with me.”

She returns, night after night, to this room hidden deep in her mind. Try as she might to conjure her sister or her niece or her nephew, it is always the excommunicate witch who professes undying love for her brother that appears to her. She has never felt so pathetically grateful for anything in her life.

* * *

When she finally makes it home to the parlour – back in Greendale – it feels as though years, not weeks, have passed. The room feels different somehow. Both larger and smaller than she remembers. Familiar, and yet not as safe as the one in her imagination had seemed. Nothing feels safe anymore.

She is sitting in this room when Mary Wardwell reveals her true identity. “Lilith,” Zelda says. Not a question, because even in the act of saying it she knows it to be true. She had always known that this infuriating woman was not who she claimed to be, she just hadn’t been sure what she was.

She feels…disappointed. She had grudgingly admired the woman when she thought she was a mere witch – her powers and depth of learning were impressive, even if the personality that accompanied them was maddening in equal measure. But Lilith: the Mother of Demons, First Witch, Mother of Night, Satan’s Concubine? Can this woman, who talks in such defeated terms about the Dark Lord’s abominable plans, really be _her_?

All her life she has aspired to be like Lilith: Lilith who fled the tyranny of the False God; Lilith who did not live in shame. And now Lilith sits before her, every bit as disappointing as the Dark Lord has proven himself to be. Perhaps it is time for her to let go of the tenets upon which she has built her life. One by one, they have proven themselves to be worthless.

* * *

She lingers by the fire that evening, long after Hilda has gone to bed. She has never been a good sleeper and that has only worsened recently. There are no prayers tonight – no _O Mighty Dark Lord_ or _Hail Lilith_. She wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn’t signed her name away to a tyrant. She wonders how much suffering she and her family might have avoided. 

She turns to pour herself a nightcap and sees Miss Wardwell reclining in the wing backed chair as though she owned it. _Not Miss Wardwell – Lilith_. The part of her that learnt to read from the Satanic Bible instinctively wants to drop to her knees. She remains standing.

“I didn’t realise you were still here,” she tells her. She’d thought that all their guests had left hours ago – returned to their respective homes to prepare themselves for their assault on the Dark Lord tomorrow.

“Where else would I go?” Lilith asks. Her expression is a caricature of innocence.

“Back to your schoolteacher’s cottage?”

Lilith shrugs. “I’ve grown rather tired of it. Bad memories.”

Zelda crosses to the sideboard and pours herself a drink. She does not offer one to Lilith.

“You’ve been very quiet of late,” Lilith tells her. “Time was I could have set my watch by your prayers. If I wore a watch. Even when you couldn’t move your own mouth you found a way.”

Zelda takes a long sip of whisky and tops up her glass before re-stopping the decanter. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she asks, turning back to face her.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific, my dear. I’ve had a long and eventful life.”

She schools her expression to remain neutral as she clarifies: “It was you that I met here when I—” She can’t bring herself to say the words, so she tries another way. “I thought the woman I danced with was a figment of my imagination, but it was you.”

“It was. You see, your prayers did not go unanswered.”

“I prayed to be _released_ from that blessed enchantment.” The words come out in a bitter croak. She soothes them away with another sip of whisky.

Lilith tilts her head to one side, like a bird examining a worm. There is an expression on her face that might almost be sympathy. She rises from her chair and approaches, until the two of them are standing inches apart. “Dear loyal Zelda,” she whispers, her breath ghosting across Zelda’s cheek. “I did all I could.”

Tears prick at her eyes. She closes them so that the Mother of Demons will not see her cry. The thought that this woman had seen her then, in all her weakness, is shameful enough.

She starts when Lilith’s hand cups her cheek. Her skin is unnaturally hot. She presses her lips to Zelda’s other cheek - a butterfly’s breath of a kiss. “How I wish I could have done more.”

Zelda nods. So does she. But it seems Lilith had done more than anyone else to help her during that time. It would have been quite unbearable without her.

“Would you care to dance, Sister Spellman? For old times’ sake?”

Zelda opens her eyes. Lilith is staring at her with what she thinks might be compassion. She takes Zelda’s glass and places it on the coffee table. Zelda accepts the hand that’s offered to her and places her other hand on Lilith’s shoulder.

Lilith begins to move. She hums a tune, something modal and ancient that Zelda does not recognise. They move slowly, swaying in time to the melody. Zelda closes her eyes as Lilith pulls her close. She rests her head against Lilith’s shoulder, losing herself in the solid heat of her presence. Lilith’s hand strokes her hair.

She’s not sure how long they dance for, but when they finally come to a standstill she feels warm and drowsy. “It’s time you were getting to bed,” Lilith tells her, guiding her towards the stairs. “You shan’t be bothered by any troublesome dreams tonight.”

* * *

Zelda pours herself the last measure of whisky from the decanter. She’ll have to bring more from the mortuary the next time she visits. She doubts anyone else in the house has made much of a dent in their supplies in her absence. She spends more of her time at the Academy these days, keeping watch over their dwindling band of students and the growing band of witches who have chosen to pledge themselves to the fledgling Order of Hecate.

Their lives have become very hectic, as though Sabrina’s dark baptism somehow heralded a change in the pace of events. She scarcely has time to brood, and Marie provides a welcome distraction from any moments of persistent introspection. She still clings to her nightly routine though: a nightcap and some light reading before the fire in her office – she’s been favouring Greek epic poetry recently. She does not like to go to bed until she is assured that sleep is waiting there for her.

Some nights, as this evening, she miscalculates. Her eyelids grow heavier and heavier as she reads, until finally they droop closed mid-stanza. She’s vaguely aware of the book sliding from her lap and hitting the floor with a thud as she spirals down into sleep.

She is in the parlour. A fire burns in the grate even though it is July. The room feels different somehow. Both smaller and larger than the room in the mortuary. Familiar, and yet safer than she feels anywhere these days. This is the room she had made for herself in her imagination, she realises. The room she had retreated to when her body was no longer a tolerable place to be.

Lilith stands by the gramophone.

“This is not a dream, is it?” Zelda asks her.

Lilith shakes her head. “No. This is as real as it ever was.” She wears the same furtive, hounded expression as the last time they met: when Lilith had begged her for sanctuary and Zelda had refused her. Guilt pricks her at the memory.

“Why are we here?”

Lilith clasps her hands in front of her body, the knuckles white. “I find it preferable to where the rest of me is.”

She knows that sentiment: the desperate desire to be as far away from the indignities being heaped upon the body as possible. She regrets her part in bringing Lilith to this place. Her fearfulness has come at a great cost to the woman to whom she once prayed.

She crosses the room to stand before her. Lilith regards her warily, as though she half expects to be cast out again. Zelda extends her hand. “Would you care to dance, Dark Mother?”

Lilith nods and takes the hand Zelda has offered her. The gramophone needle falls and a record crackles to life: the old jazz song that was playing the last time they were here. Zelda leads them into a dance. It is little more than a slow shuffle. Lilith feels brittle in her arms. She tugs her close and Lilith buries her face in her shoulder, clinging to Zelda’s hand and waist like a drowning woman.

“That’s right,” she soothes, gripping the hand in her hand firmly, reassuringly. Her breath ghosts across Lilith’s cheek. She places a kiss into the thick, dark hair at her temple. “We’ll stay here together for as long as you need.”


End file.
